Don't Tell Me You're Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella Page B

able to walk or even shout in the middle of the street. Being able to stop someone and talk to him. The idea of being able to do all those things made my head spin.
    After an hour I reached the stadium; it was now eight o’clock. The guard behind the gate was moved to take pity on me. When he heard where I’d traveled from, he opened the gate with a big key, let me in, and even found me a shady spot where I could rest.
    I tried to lie down on the grass surrounding the track, in front of the stands, but sleep was the last thing on my mind.
    I was quivering like the strings of a
shareero,
the instrument that Hussein played in Hodan’s group.
    At ten they opened the gates and the first runners arrived with their coaches. Only then, unhurriedly, did they set up the tables for those who had signed up.
    I was the first to present myself.
    The lady in charge looked at me questioningly and asked me my name. I answered her, terrified that somehow, between Mogadishu and Hargeysa, my name might have been lost along with my registration and that I had come all that way for nothing.
    But the lady looked me up and down and only asked: “Did you sleep, child?”
    â€œYes, of course I slept. How could I run if I hadn’t rested,
abaayo
?” I replied, candid as a lily.
    â€œAll right, then go rinse your face afterward. There’s a fountain over there.”
    â€œThank you,
abaayo
.”
    â€œWhat’s your name, child?”
    â€œSamia Yusuf Omar,” I said, all in one breath.
    The lady opened the register and searched. Endless seconds went by. “I come from Mogadishu,
abaayo
,” I added.
    â€œSamia Yusuf Omar from Mogadishu . . . Here it is.”
    I signed the book and she gave me the bib with my number. My first bib.
    I was signed up for the women’s one-hundred-meter and two-hundred-meter races.
    My number was 78.
    I had to wait another two hours before running. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
    Fortunately, the women competed before the men.
    I exchanged a few words with a couple of girls, but I couldn’t get too distracted. I was there to win, not to chat. I kept looking around; I couldn’t help it. Everything was new to me. It was my first time in the north, my first real race.
    I was surely the youngest. No one would have bet a shilling on me.
    After a while, when my impatience had reached its peak, I took the path of least resistance. I lay down on the grass and waited for time to pass. Surrounded by that sweet, enveloping scent.
    Until the moment came.
    My opponents didn’t seem very intimidating. They were older than me, but they didn’t have the fervent eyes of real athletes. Right away I had the feeling that I could come in first.
    In a little less than two hours I won the two qualifying rounds in the heats, one after the other.
    Before I knew it, I found myself in the final, with a lot lessbreath, a great deal of pain in my quadriceps, and two races behind me. One in the hundred meters and one in the two hundred.
    The first-place finishers from each heat were admitted to the final.
    The first of the finals was the two hundred meters. My legs were stiff as boards from the overexertion; I was twice as exhausted as the others because I was the only one to run both races.
    But that only made me more driven. If I had come this far, I might even win.
    I bent over the starting blocks and at the signal took off like a rocket, my eyes only on the finish line.
    In my head, as always, were the voices of Aabe and Alì, shouting at me to run.
    And I ran.
    I crossed the finish line first.
    It was a huge thrill, the greatest feeling of liberation.
    Number one.
    I was the fastest runner of my country in the two hundred meters. Something that I was barely able to absorb.
    I didn’t have much time to let it sink in, however. In ten minutes the hundred-meter final, the most important race, would be run.
    The spectators in the stands began to make